Now that the Memorandum of Understanding* (MOU) has been signed allegedly ending hostilities between the United States and Iran, the diplomatic drama will become one of handwringing, outrage, boasting and predictable mendacity especially on part of the White House.<\/p>\n
Many wars over the last couple centuries have ended In what diplomats call \u201cstatus quo ante bellum,\u201d or the return to things as they were before the war. An example is the War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain. Though no territory changed hands,Trump\u2019s War did not end with a return to normal, but as a case of \u201cuti possidetis\u201d (as you possess) which left Iran in possession of power over the Strait of Hormuz it did not have prior to the war.<\/p>\n
By any standard Trump\u2019s War has been a failure: it did not bring about regime change, it did not destroy Iran\u2019s ability to wage war, it did not eliminate Iran\u2019s nuclear program or destroy its stockpile of bomb-grade uranium, it did not destroy Iran\u2019s strength as a dominant player in Mideast politics or its partnerships with terrorist groups and it did not end Iran\u2019s threat to America\u2019s ally Israel. It did, however, exacerbate politics in the Mideast, weaken the U.S.-Iran alliance, embolden Iran for withstanding the combined military forces of the United States and Israel, and demonstrated the limits of U.S. power, both politically and militarily. And, perhaps, most appalling, it helped Iran seize power over the Strait of Hormuz as a diplomatic weapon, including tacit permission to charge tolls and exercise control over the strait.<\/p>\n
This is what happens when a nation abdicates its control to a megalomaniacal leader for whose politics are predicated solely upon partisan and personal aggrandizement; this is what happens when incompetent sycophants without diplomatic portfolio are put in charge of negotiations. This is what many of us worried about from the git-go when Trump ran for president in 2016 when we asked, do you want this guy to have his finger on the nuclear button?<\/p>\n
After spending $29 billion dollars on military operations with an estimated cost of $132 billion for consumers and taxpayers, what have we accomplished? To those of you for whom \u201cTrump Fever\u201d has not broken yet, ask yourself if this is what you wanted, was the defeat of Hillary Clinton in 2016 and or hatred of Barack Obama really worth it? How long do we need to go like this before much of the MAGA crowd disappears, like so many Germans who claimed not to have supported the Nazis during World War II?<\/p>\n
And the laugher, if we could laugh about this stuff, the president will boast and bask in his own limelight, telling us his war was a great success, a triumph that only he could pull off.<\/p>\n
*We should note that the Memorandum of Understanding signing at Versailles is reminiscent of the ill-fated WWI treaty also signed there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Now that the Memorandum of Understanding* (MOU) has been signed allegedly ending hostilities between the United States and Iran, the diplomatic drama will become one of handwringing, outrage, boasting and predictable mendacity especially on part of the White House. Many wars over the last couple centuries have ended In what diplomats call \u201cstatus quo ante…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-robert-fischer"],"yoast_head":"\n